Auburn, Ala—Tonight the #12 Auburn Tigers took on the #7 Florida Gators in women’s gymnastics and fell just 0.300 points shy of defeating the Gators.
Auburn put up a good fight in all four events tonight finishing with a final score of 197.025, it just wasn’t enough to top the Gators who finished with a score of 197.325.
One of the things that was noticeable in tonight’s meet was that Auburn appeared much stronger on the beam and floor than they did on the vault and bars.
On this point, Coach Graba said, “We’re not consistent early. We’re waiting for a bit to get our feet wet, and then once we feel it out we’re good.”
It's not to say that despite Auburn’s slow start in the first two rotations there weren’t stand-out performances by some of their gymnasts.
The first stand-out performance of the night came from Sophia Groth, who competed first for Auburn on the vault and finished with a 9.900, which was the highest score of the night for either Florida or Auburn on the vault.
“When’s the last time the first person up in the whole meet won that event? I’m not sure that’s possible anymore,” Graba said of Groth’s performance.
Sophia Groth’s vault was certainly spectacular, and it is extremely impressive that she not only opened the meet, and the vault, with such a high score but also that she won Vault, despite going first.
The stand-out performance of the evening for Auburn though came from Gabby McLaughlin's beam routine in which she scored a 9.950, a score that won her the event tonight against Florida.
Cassie Stevens, who went right before Gabby and scored a 9.900 on Beam, said, “We love having her at the end because we just know that we’re going to end the beam rotation with an exclamation point.”
The Tigers certainly ended the beam rotation with an exclamation point, and it was a perfect transition into their floor routines which ended the meet with an exclamation point.
Floor was the Tigers’ best event by far tonight, finishing with an event score of 49.450, and four gymnasts scored 9.900 or higher for the event.
Aria Brusch and Sophia Groth both scored 9.900 while Cassie Stevens and Gabby McLaughlin finished the event with a score of 9.925.
About their floor routines, Stevens said, “We just know how strong floor squad is, especially being the last event at home. You know the energy in the arena just helps fuel us.”
The energy inside of Neville Arena was intense, and for Auburn, their floor routines only intensified the energy for the next routine, as all of them were high energy and spectacular.
Next week, Auburn faces their highest-ranked opponent this season in #4 Arkansas as they travel up to Barnhill Arena as they look to continue to improve their team score next week.
